Giving thanks for our Las Vegas blessings

Monday, Nov. 23, 2015 | 2 a.m.

When we sit down this week to celebrate our uniquely American holiday, many families will do what they always do — give thanks for the food, their health, the love at their table.

Other families also may do on Thursday what they do any time they sit for a meal. “Looks good. Pass the butter, please. What’s the score?”

So we’d like to offer a cheat sheet to those for whom giving thanks doesn’t come regularly or easily, and offer some food for thought on what we have to be thankful for as a community.

In no particular order, but with heartfelt thanks for each:

• Our children’s teachers, who often spend more interactive time with our kids on a weekday than many parents, especially those who, out of necessity, work two jobs or have shifts that take them away from their children. Be grateful for the teachers with years if not decades of experience who have honed the art of giving instruction in ways that intellectually feed and inspire the next generation of leaders, and be thankful for the new teachers who have the guts and the willingness to work in a struggling district and to follow their hearts in shaping young lives.

• Health care providers — the nursing home caregivers, paramedics, nurses, lab technicians, physicians, back-office clerks — who may be targeted with complaints about the cost of medicine but who have little to do with it and who at the end of the day want us to feel better.

• Small-business owners who frequently risk just about everything to be their own bosses and who, collectively, are responsible for the greatest amount of employment. And in the same vein, thanks to the risk-taking researchers and developers in our emerging-technology industry, and the venture capitalists who back them, in pursuit of new answers and more inventive applications that enrich our everyday lives.

• Major-league philanthropists and visionaries who have helped Las Vegas — the youngest big city in the country — mature in sophisticated, community-building ways, with the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, the Smith Center for the Performing Arts, the UNLV School of Medicine and all of the other communitywide efforts that have made this a better place to live.

• Our law enforcement agencies, for doing a job that opens them up to far more criticism than kudos but who perform professionally and with courage, never knowing what the next call may bring.

• Such caring community organizations as United Way, Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, Opportunity Village and Three Square, for helping the hungry, the homeless, the addicted, the unemployed, and to all those who donate to those efforts in time, talent or treasure.

• Members of our service industry — food servers and housekeepers, porters and front-desk attendants, who with a smile check in tired and snappy travelers at 3 a.m. — for helping Las Vegas build its reputation as a friendly place to have fun and relax.

• All the immigrants who have enriched the cultural diversity of the Las Vegas Valley, who celebrate their culture with grand festivals, live productively and contribute to our neighborhoods and workplaces.

• Members of the trades, who have constructed magnificent resorts that bring us worldwide attention, and our local artisans, who through their creativity, bring thoughtful art and outrageous costumes to the Arts District, the Strip and beyond.

• Our veterans who already have sacrificed and those currently serving the country, including those at Nellis Air Force Base, because they help secure our nation.

• And ultimately, for our freedom to walk the streets, speak our minds and chase our dreams.